#their whole family deserves better than that

[swaps55]

Okay so I usually don't really care for OCs in a story, but the Yang's crew has stolen my heart completely ngl. So I was wondering, what would Pendergrass, Aslany and Beaudoin think about the ME1 Normandy's crew? How would they get along with them?

I've been sitting on this question so I could give it the attention it deserves, because it's a really fun thought exercise.

[And now that I've written this out, I really wish I could put them on the SR-1 and explore it further, so thank you again for an amazing question.]

Beaudoin: By nature, he gets along with everyone, but I think if you were to put him on the SR-1 or mix him with that crew, he'd feel really out of his element. He's never seen himself as anything other than Just A Guy. The superhero stuff is for other people. Courage, bravery, heroism, and The Cause isn't his thing, not because he doesn't care, but because he lacks the drive and initiative people like Sam, Kaidan, and Aslany do. (Pendergrass doesn't have initiative so much as insatiable curiosity and an unsettling lack of concern for safety).

So when it comes to the SR-1 crew, he'd probably feel even more of what he did on the 'Yang with Sam - that he's not good enough to work with these people. But he's very good at hiding his insecurities, so you probably wouldn't see it unless you knew what to look for.

He'd probably avoid Wrex. Dealing with Wrex is outside his paygrade. Garrus' loose cannon tendencies would worry him a lot, and he'd nag Sam to watch that guy because he was bound to get himself and everyone else in trouble. I wrote a scene in my ME1-fic, Exordium, in which Shepard (not Sam) notices Ashley get weird during a card game, finds her in the cargo bay, and then discovers she was playing poker with her unit when the geth attacked. Beaudoin would be the guy who sought her out if he were there, and he'd give her someone to talk to or confide in about Eden Prime, pep talk her about her family legacy, and have a smile when she needed it.

He'd find Tali delightful and charm the pants off her. He'd make sure she had something decent to eat, and when he figures out she's lonely away from home, guess who becomes a Fleet and Flotilla fan and sucks Ashley into it. The three of them hold watch parties, and suck in everyone they can. Aslany has to be dragged kicking and screaming, but she does it for Clay even though she scowls the whole time. He'd be equal parts fascinated and amused by Liara's blend of competence and naivete. He'd be the one to shake Sam by the shoulders and say, "to you Benezia was a monster to put down, but to Liara it was her mom."

Joker and Ashley would severely test his, "you don't fuck crew," motto, but he'd resist. Virmire would put a rift between him and Sam, while also putting himself in a guilt spiral, because the other choice would have been to leave Kaidan behind, and he wouldn't have been able to live with that, either. Virmire, more than anything, would teach Beaudoin things about what Sam does that he never truly grasped on the 'Yang, and reinforce that he wants no part of that. I think he gets out of the Alliance after Virmire.

Pendergrass: We saw in Fugue that Pendergrass developed some pretty intense jealousy over the SR-1 crew, fearing that Kaidan and Sam had replaced her with something better. And I think if she were on the SR-1, she'd get off on the wrong foot with Tali specifically. But they're both huge tech nerds, and Tali is Tali and Kara is Kara, so that would pass quickly. It wouldn't be long before they'd be attached at the hip, and and when one of them said, "I have an idea," the whole ship would nervously hold their breath.

She wouldn't get Liara at all, and probably ask a lot of really inappropriate questions about asari sexuality, requiring Beaudoin to intervene and explain to Liara, "Sorry, she's just Like That, she doesn't mean anything by it.' She would have no fear of Wrex, thanks to Sam's reverent krogan talk over the years. Wrex would find her excessively irritating at first, but would find a deep appreciation for her after watching her work in the field. She's a different kind of warrior with different weapons than he's used to, but a warrior all the same. If you can imagine anyone lounging in Wrex's lap to watch a movie, please imagine Kara.

She might bounce off Ashley a little for similar reasons to her initial clash with Tali, but my guess is they don't make up the ground the way Kara and Tali do. ME1 Garrus is probably a little too intense and focused for her, but she'd get along famously with ME3 Garrus. She'd think he was funny, and take his side over Vega's when they play one-up with each other.

Aslany: She would predispose herself to hating everyone. This is her family, her squad, and fuck you. You aren't part of it. Opening up her small circle of people she loves so fiercely would be extremely difficult for her. None of them are good enough to protect her people. Kara becoming close with Tali and Beaudoin becoming close with Ashley would make her crazy. She'd need a lot of reassurance, and Kaidan is probably who she'd go to for it. Ironically, she'd find Wrex the least threatening and warm up to him first. He'd be skeptical of the fragile human who wants to spar, but ultimately sing her praises, and Sam would be insanely proud of this.

She might grudgingly start to tolerate Ashley, but by that time it'll be too late. She probably becomes more neutral towards Liara, but the swiftness with which Liara becomes close to Sam would irk her a lot. Garrus would also piss her off - who the fuck does this guy think he is, I'm the sniper in this family - but after the events of ME2 she would respect him for sticking with Sam when the rest of them didn't, and see him a lot differently.

[thisbarbiereallylikesbirds]

Why Tang Shen is soo interesting to me

Okay with all the Nameless Trio content I’ve been posting I feel the need to let you guys know why I find Shen so interesting. This may be a long one but I have LOTS of thoughts so please hang tight.

“If we interfere Splinter will never move to New York and buy four baby turtles”

Donnie in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) S3 E19

First of all Shen is literally the reason the story happens in most iterations. If it weren’t for her death, Hamato Yoshi likely never would’ve moved to New York, never bought the turtles, and they never would’ve gotten mutated. Without her there’d be no story. And yet she’s barely ever mentioned in canon.

Now I could talk for ages about fridging women and why it’s a stupid out-dated, over-used, misogynistic trope. And I’m not even going to pretend that’s not what happened to her. But one of the main problems with fridging is the fact that after the woman’s death sets the plot into motion (usually for some sort of love interest) she’s eventually forgotten by the plot. Women in fiction deserve better treatment than that. Real women deserve better representation than that.

However there’s another way that characters who die before the story starts can be utilized. One that I’m absolutely OBSESSED with. And that is the idea of haunting the narrative. Two of the best examples that I can think of are Mara from She-Ra and Caleb Wittenbane from the Owl House. Both characters are dead before the series begins. For a while the only way that we know about them is through what the other characters tell us. And, of course, this is a very biased view of the person. Sometimes it’s very one dimensional. 

But even though we know almost nothing about them, they linger. They are everywhere in the story. So many things only happen because of them. Memories of Caleb are everywhere in Phillip’s mindscape. Hunter’s entire life is dictated by the memory of a man who died hundreds of years ago. And even the door, the things that brings Luz the the Boiling Isles and sets the whole story into motion only is opened for her because Caleb stole it from Belos and buried it in the backyard of his family home. We don’t know much about Mara but we know that Adora is in a way doomed to follow in her footsteps. 

“In every other universe Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man. And in every other universe…it doesn’t end well.”

Spider-Gwen in Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

So we’ve talked about out-of-universe stuff. But what about what’s in the actual story? Due to the crossovers we know that all the iterations of TMNT sort of exist in the same way all the universes exist in the Spider-Verse world. They all have their own dimension. I can’t help but think of the parallels not only between the worlds but the characters who live within them. Gwen Stacy dies in every universe but one. She knows this. Unfortunately, the universe where she survives isn’t exactly kind to her. She loses her best friend. She loses Miles. She loses her father. She loses any chance at having a normal life. 

In 2012 the turtles have a conversation with Shen where she is trying to pick between Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi. Of course they don’t know this at the time, but one of the choices will lead to her death. However, it will also lead to the world being saved from a variety of threats. But what if she did know? What if Shen knew that she would be sacrificing herself? What if she knew that in every other universe she was doomed to die? In every universe but one, that is.

Tang Shen is never said to be dead in ROTTMNT. But we only see her once in a movie poster. We know she exists but she has no relevance. As far as we know, she’s out there living her best life. So what is she like? What would a person be like in the one universe where she gets to live?

I really hope this wasn’t too long but thank you so much for reading this whole thing! If you want some content about Rise!Shen then visit the Nameless Trio tag on my blog, she’s one of the three main characters in that au.

[seleneprince]

File about Severus Snape's werewolf daughter (because she deserves it and I want to do it)

Name: Livia Eileen Prince

Born: 30 August 1980

Blood status: Pureblood

Nationality: British with Italian roots

Also known as: Liv, Princess (by Draco), Prince Bastard, that viper (by Sirius Black), Snape's girl.

Species: Werewolf (since birth)

Hair: Ivory black

Eye colour: Onyx black with motes of grey

Family:

Severus Snape (father)

Unnamed werewolf woman (mother, deceased)

Eileen Prince (paternal grandmother, deceased)

Tobias Snape (paternal grandfather, deceased)

Boggart: Her father's corpse

Patronus: Snake

Affiliations: Hogwarts, House Prince, House Malfoy (she's practically one of them), wherever her father is.

House: Slytherin or Hufflepuff

Faceclaim: Jessie Mei Li (Shadow and Bone)

Trivia:

-She's half Asian on her mother's side.

-She's Severus Snape #1 defender and supporter. She adores her dad and will gladly fight anyone that insults him. She's not afraid of facing grown ass men is she sees them disrespecting him.

-House Prince has Roman-Italian roots, so Severus named his daughter after one of the most relevant women in Roman story. Her second name is because Severus wanted to honor his mother but felt that it could be a bad omen giving it as first name. He doesn't want to accidentally curse his child to the same fate.

-To the public, she's considered an illegitimate child from House Prince, an ancient family of purebloods whose line was thought to be extinct.

-Severus wasn't going to ask the Malfoys to be the godparents because he didn't think they would want anything to do with a child with lycanthropy. They were furious at his reasoning and proclaimed that any child of his was considered family to them.

-So yeah Lucius and Narcissa are the godparents, because they wouldn't have it any other way.

-Because of this, Draco and Livia have been practically raised together and share a very close bond.

-He accepts Livia's condition but it doesn't apply for others like her. He's an hypocrite like his parents.

-She has her own room in Malfoy Manor because of how often she has spent the night there, thanks to her father's busy life. They also have a special room for her during the full moon nights.

-The only people that know of her condition are Severus, the Malfoys and Dumbledore.

-Remus finds out as soon as he interacts with her and he's flabbergasted.

-She's been learning Potions ever since she was old enough to hold a spoon. There's no way in hell Severus Snape wouldn't teach his daughter Potions.

-Despite this, her favourite subject is Care for Magical Creatures. She has a knack for it and connects with them better than with humans.

-Regardless of which house she ends up in, she'll be friends with the Slytherins.

-She plays Beater in the quidditch team. It's the only time she doesn't have to worry about her strenght.

-Ron is her favourite of the Golden Trio, but she's interested in Harry's trayectory.

-Really sharp and developed senses. Nothing ever escapes her. She also gets easily overwhelmed the days prior the full moon.

-She's a natural Legilimens like her father, which she found out after accidentally seeing one of his memories once. It was very uncomfortable for both.

-Severus has never told her the whole story with the marauders, only some pieces of it here and there. She knows it from the Malfoys and her own individual research (aka peeking into certain people's minds).

-Because of this, she dislikes Sirius and Remus a lot, specially the first. She doesn't see the point on hating James Potter if he's dead.

-One of the effects of her lycantropy is that she's naturally good with Dark Arts. Might be the only useful and painless thing her condition gave her.

-Her copying mechanism is dark humour, which she started to apply first with her lycantropy. She makes jokes about it and tries to take it with philosophy. She's not asshamed of it.

-She knows how to brew the wolfsbane potion but still prefers when her dad does it.

-At some point she has to share the Shrieking Shack with Lupin for the full moon nights. It makes an awkward experience for both.

-She goes by Prince instead of Snape to hide the fact that she's Severus' daughter. This was decided by Severus himself, to protect her from the danger of being associated with him. Livia isn't fond of this idea, but understands the reasons behind it.

-She doesn't really aprove of Draco's behaviour most of the time, but is too amused by it to stop him. If she really dislikes something he did, she'll play along in public but will chastize him in private. Kinda "I don't agree with you but I'll defend you anyway because we're supposed to be a team".

-She knows more than she should. Severus long gave up on trying to hide anything from her.

(In this AU, lycantropy has nothing to do with AIDs. It's a blood curse that happens to be contagious and, like all curses, it can be passed down to generations)

[byfulcrums]

Something I love about ATLA is that it doesn't force the "forgive the villain" on all the characters. It's been left clear that Ozai is a bad person, and there's no chance of redemption; the only reason he's not dead yet is because Aang is a pacifist

The one episode where a character is supposed to forgive someone who has hurt them in the past is the one where Katara is off to kill a man (which, fair) and Zuko helps. In that episode, even if Aang is telling her to let go, she doesn't forgive him. She never will. But she spares him. Not because she thinks he doesn't deserve death (he does), but because she's not willing to continue the cycle of violence

Killing someone can have a very important impact in your entire being, mostly depending on who you are as a person. Aang would've never recovered from killing Ozai. Katara wouldn't be who she is now, had she taken her revenge on the man that killed her mother

And the best part of it is that Ozai doesn't deserve to die. Not in a "I'm defending him" way (ew), but in a "he deserves worse that than" way

Taking away his bending was the perfect punishment for him. He believed bending made you superior and he never cared enough to train something besides his bending. What a loser. Zuko and Azula wouldn't be restrained by something like that

He's alive. Nobody has forgiven him. Nobody ever will

[96percentdone]

I feel like it bears repeating on like a daily basis, but I do unironically think Nirvana Initiative is like. Demonstrably superior in craft and meaning than the first AI: The Somnium Files. Like I'm not doing a bit on this blog or anything I just actually think AINI is that good and deserves the world. This is the hill upon which I will die, I'm right, fuck you.

[buffyspeak]

aria montgomery deserved better 2kforever like. in these first two seasons, her relationship with ezra is hard to watch (in more ways than one! i sometimes find myself rooting for them not to get caught, largely because i like and have sympathy for aria but also because the actors do genuinely have good chemistry. but then i remember how fucked up it is! that’s why the romanticization of this relationship was so dangerous!) - anyway. it was hard to watch and messy but she also had like. other things in her story that at least made her feel like a more fleshed out character. and i always see people saying things about how she’s not as kind as she acts like but she literally shows so much empathy to. most people. and her role as a psuedo caretaker/fixer in her family is so nuanced and interesting and informs a lot of how she interacts with ezra (she feels like she’s been forced into a more adult role, so she courts this adult ‘romance’. ugh.) and it legitimately could have been a nuanced and interesting story about family dynamics and the pressure on teenage girls in their roles in family and how that can be connected to grooming if it had been written that way but!!!!

anyway her story just becomes more and more entangled with Only Being About Ezra from what i remember. which is one of the reasons people kept theorizing about her being A but. i just see it as isolation (not total, she is obviously still very close with her friends, but there is a sort of disconnect.) and then they get MARRIED????? she deserved better for real.

[musicalchaos07]

It's just like something about Jonathan's clear anger issues in s1 and how he swallows them but they still come out sometimes "like a month"/"deal with it like the rest of us"/ "I'm pulling us over before we get more lost" but the anger is gone just as quick as it came bc he doesn't want to be angry. And the person he's angry at the most (Lonnie) is the entire reason he won't let himself feel the anger. Because he's terrified of being Lonnie. We see that over and over. Being angry is synonymous with Lonnie in his mind. So he pushes it down and now all that squashed anger has escalated him into depression.

ANYWAYS, either Vecna is going to have a field day or Steve's getting his ass beat again.

[cosmicterrorthe8th]

Son on father violence in dungeons and daddies is the Wilson's making sure their father doesn't get to keep the pet they want.

[kasumikoujou]

my g00 art is a weird phenomenon of when someone thats only ever been into things for kids, shoujo and other silly things gets into the brutal joylessmost gundam . will i ever draw things that arent cute of it? absolutely not (*´ω｀)

[alchemiclee]

been looking in tags for a few days now to see if anyone else found the whole high cloud quintet and related story to be a bit.....poorly written, nonsensical, contradictory, full of plot holes and loose ends, etc. apparently i'm not the only one. (and i'm not even talking about shipping stuff, because any time I saw someone mad about bad writing, someone always replies to be homophobic and laugh about failed ships. weirdos.) it could have been so good but was thrown into the garbage for the most part (IF you noticed all the plot holes and contradiction. if not, then it's a fine enough story tbh. I expect most people to see it on surface level and not read all the little hidden lore bits and try to piece it together like my autistic brain did. which is ok! enjoy it if you liked it and ignore me 😆)

[jrueships]

they Need to Kiss.

[malewifehenrycooldown]

Sometimes I think about that moment in NMH2 when Travis’s talks about how ‘despite assassins being super fucked up, are still human beings that deserve respect’ and I just… kinda get emotional over that because even though he is a pathetic loser, he’s not wrong!! He’s absolutely correct!!

Assassins are more than just tools! They are more than just bloodthirsty killers! They had lives! Dreams! Personalities! Interests!! Family!! They had things that they cared about but had no choice but to abandon them, because the life of an assassin is cruel one with constant competition. The genuine horror of it is realising that at any moment, a ranking fight would be set and on that day of the fight you’d have to accept the fact that you might not walk out the door, it’s sad!! It’s horrifying! And with each little bit of info on the assassins you get you can’t help but feel bad for them. Sure they knew what they were signing up for but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a dignified/honourable death !!

[ranger-kellyn]

look. i don't care what anyone says, if you're someone who wants a partner, you deserve one that doesn't yell at you. you deserve a partner that doesn't make you walk on eggshells. you deserve a partner who you can have civil discussions with when disagreements come up. you deserve a partner who doesn't try to intimidate you in any way when they're mad. you deserve a partner who doesn't "keep score".

[gch1995]

How do you feel about Anakin blaming only himself for his fall tot he dark-side? Personally I think self hatred is his own worst enemy….

It is absolutely true that all of Anakin’s arrogance and denial is entirely a “mask” to cover up for his own guilt, insecurities, and self-loathing as Darth Vader. It’s not just his fault he ended up where he did, but he also can’t keep letting his past define him either. There is hope to do better, and deep down he knows it. He’s just too afraid and too hopeless to try.

Yes, his agency is compromised under Sidious, even more than it was under Obi-Wan and the Jedi Order, so, yeah, objectively speaking, it’s not just Anakin’s fault alone he’s in this position with no real safe escape opportunities. In and of itself, it’s not even morally wrong to want to connect with his son to escape his abuser. The means he was using to try to reach out to him were abusive, manipulative, selfish, and unfair in regards to Luke until the end of ROTJ, though, and that’s why he gets framed as wrong for it it. He’s not being cowardly or selfish in his desire to seek a healthier connection than Sidious in his son. That’s relatable. The fact that he was endangering, hurting, and threatening Luke to try to pressure his son to become someone he did not want to be for his own ends out of a desire to gain freedom, while simultaneously continuing to live in denial of his own guilt and fear of the unknown, was fucked up.

Anakin’s arrogance, denial, and attempts to manipulate Luke for Sidious and his own personal “greater good” out of fear of the unknown and self-hatred as Darth Vader is actually a lot like Yoda’s and especially Obi-Wan’s attempts to use Luke for their own “greater good.” Yeah, I’m not denying that the Empire was worse than the old Republic and needed to be taken down. I’m not arguing that there aren’t valid reasons for many people to hate Darth Vader and want him dead for personal safety, justice, and protection reasons in A New Hope. I have a lot of sympathy for Anakin. He’s my favorite character along with, but, regardless of the living hell of constant victimization he endured under a series very abusive, arrogant, corrupt, oppressive, and manipulative bastards of authority figures from whom there was no reasonably safe escape, I’m not going to pretend like he didn’t also enable and perpetuate horrendous systematic abuse, crime, oppression, and tyranny for a little over two decades himself.

I think diminished responsibility is a more accurate way to judge Anakin for his crimes, considering the constant living hell of abuse, manipulation, and exploitation his entire life was under these corrupt authority figures in these screwed up state sanctioned military cults that recruited children as soldiers under incredibly dubious and ill-informed consent. However, while Anakin definitely was capable of being an amazingly kind, loyal, empathetic, and self-sacrificing person at his best, he definitely did become a horrifying lawful evil at his worst, and not all of his crimes were ones he committed just because Sidious, Obi-Wan, and the Jedi Council coerced him to. He did develop a personally angry, selfish, and vengeful side, too.

So yeah, I can understand the logic of thinking that the galaxy might be safer without Vader. I can understand why a lot of his victims would feel that way. However, never once do Obi-Wan and Yoda tell Luke to kill the Emperor, too, and they know he’s the “big bad” in charge, not Darth Vader/Anakin, Yet, it’s just Vader, their former student, who they helped fuck up, left to burn when he turned on them, and then continued to hide and run away from after finding out he survived, who they are focused on using Luke to kill, which heavily implies that their motives aren’t nearly as selfless as they keep trying to convince either Luke or themselves. They’re being self-centered and manipulative cowards who are trying to find an easy way to redeem themselves without having to take personal responsibility and living in denial because facing the truth the right way hurts and is risky. It’s quite similar to what Vader was doing to Luke.

It’s easier for Yoda and Obi-Wan to continue to avoid facing the reality of their bad decisions and mistakes, instead of acknowledging how deeply abusive, damaging, self-centered, and toxic they had become in their fear of facing the unknown through their support of a corrupt Republic government, their hypocritical, their problematic methods and lifestyle in regards to Anakin and their other recruits, and the Republic as a whole, That is why they end up going in to hiding after Order 66 and attempt to use Luke to kill off the monster they inadvertently helped influence his father to become in the first place by deceiving him, endangering him, and manipulating him to try to escape their guilt and absolve themselves in regards to their mistakes with Anakin and the Empire without actually having to do the work of admitting they had been wrong and taking full personal ownership. The fact that they want to redeem themselves is a good instinct. The fact that they’re using an innocent Luke to try to do it for them is where it becomes cowardly, manipulative, and selfish.

I get that they’ve been in these messed up space soldier cults and systems for most of their lives with limited options, so their agency to be able to reasonably feel safe doing any better is compromised,l. It’s not entirely their faults they ended up in these positions that allowed them to grow up to be such deeply damaged and dysfunctional adults. They were victims who deserved better. However, they also had consciences that they buried by living in denial and fear of the unknown, which became a seriously fucked up issue of selfishness and toxicity when people who had nothing to do with their issues became “worthy” collateral damage and scapegoats for them to continue to not take personal accountability and risks to self-improve instead.

Still, in the end, Anakin’s the only one of his predecessors left from the old Jedi in the movies who learns to do the right thing.

[helpimstuckinafandom]

So I decided to read Cruel Prince because one of these popular book series has to be good and Holly Black wrote Spiderwick so I trust her more than other authors and I'm 100 pages in and so far I like the protagonist her and her sisters are all valid for the way they feel in this situation and I'm mad curious to find out why Cardan is so cruel and all that I guess

[verfound]

Can you tell me about “I didn’t run”? Mysterious and sounds slightly angsty

Angsty yes, but not that mysterious? 😂 Unsurprising to anyone, there's a decent chunk of the Hoard focusing on Jagged. Also unsurprising to anyone, I was not entirely pleased with a lot of the S4 decisions - how they handled Jagged and his relationship with Luka being one of them.

I Didn't Run was me kicking around a fix-it to work out my Thoughts on Truth with respect to said relationship. Because here's the thing. Jagged is a flake. I can kinda see Jagged deciding kids weren't for him (or that he just couldn't be the dad a kid needed) and bailing. I just find it more likely that he never knew to begin with. Anarka was 100x more likely to know Jagged's character and leave before he ever knew about the baby because she didn't trust him to be a good dad to begin with. She is fiercely independent and set in her opinions of Jagged, and in her mind that would be the best way to protect her bairns. (I also refuse to buy into that whole "Luka/Juleka Twin" bull or separate father thing - but that's a HC rant for another time. There are ways to work this storyline out that the showrunners are either too lazy or too cowardly to approach. All I'm saying.)

Anyway, I don't have much here...

“I didn’t know!” he snapped, spinning to kick at the table nearest him.  It toppled over in a loud smashing of crystal goblets and golden plates – only the best, André had declared, for Price Ali, even if the birthday boy in question would’ve been happier eating off disposables and sending the money saved to charity.  At his display, Penny folded her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes.

“You did, Jacob,” she said, her voice firm and steady.  He winced and curled in on himself.  No one used his real name anymore, not since he’d put his folks in the ground five years back…

“Not at first,” he said, his voice quiet.  He reached up to scrub at his face, pressing his hands tight against his eyes.  “When Nanarchy showed up with the kid…she’d been gone so long already, Pen.  I didn’t think…I didn’t want to think…I wasn’t the one who ran away, damn it!”

“Not at first, no,” Penny said, walking over to him and laying a hand on his shoulder.  He tensed when she squeezed.  “But you didn’t run back to them, either, once you did.  You just…took everything she said about you at face value and never even gave yourself a chance to prove her wrong.  You are not the man she says you are, Jacob.  Luka and Juleka deserve to know that.”